Sign-In
Cart
The Next Giant Leap: Inside Artemis II and the Dawn of a New Lunar Era
Paperback
Publisher: Shelby Robinson
Published: Apr 4 2026
Pages: 130
Weight: 0.35
Height: 0.28 Width: 5.50 Depth: 8.50
Language: English
On April 1, 2026, four astronauts strapped into the Orion spacecraft named Integrity and rode the most powerful rocket ever built by NASA into the sky. What followed was a ten-day journey that took humanity farther from Earth than any had traveled in more than half a century.
The Next Giant Leap is the definitive, gripping account of Artemis II - the mission that ended America's fifty-three-year absence from deep space. Through vivid, real-time storytelling, bestselling-style narrative nonfiction, and unprecedented access to the crew and program, this book takes readers inside the cockpit of Orion as Commander Reid Wiseman, Pilot Victor Glover, Mission Specialist Christina Koch, and Mission Specialist Jeremy Hansen (the first non-American to fly this far) launch from Kennedy Space Center, perform the critical translunar injection burn, swing behind the Moon, break the Apollo 13 distance record, and become the first humans to see the lunar far side with their own eyes since the 1970s.
From the long, painful birth of the Space Launch System and Orion - marked by cost overruns, heat-shield drama, and engineering triumphs - to the brutal training that prepared the crew for a mission with no quick rescue, the book brings the human drama to life. It profiles the four astronauts with empathy and depth: Wiseman, the steady Navy test pilot and single father; Glover, the pioneering Black astronaut carrying generations of dreams; Koch, the record-holding ISS astronaut opening doors for women in STEM; and Hansen, the Canadian farm boy turned fighter pilot representing global partnership.
Beyond the white-knuckle mission itself, The Next Giant Leap explores the larger meaning of Artemis II for America and the world. It examines the nationwide economic impact that touched all fifty states, the technological spin-offs already transforming industries on Earth, the surge of renewed national pride, and the inspiration it ignited in the Artemis Generation - especially girls and underrepresented students in STEM. The book places the mission in historical context, tracing the wilderness years after Apollo 17, the bumpy political road from Constellation to Artemis, the strength of the Artemis Accords, healthy competition with China, and the commercial space boom that made sustainable exploration possible.
With cinematic prose and meticulous research, this book delivers the thrill of launch, the awe of the lunar far side, the tension of high-speed reentry, and the joy of safe splashdown. It closes by looking forward: Artemis II as the bridge to crewed lunar landings in 2028 and beyond, the foundation for lunar bases, and the essential stepping stone toward humanity's ultimate goal - becoming a multi-planetary species.
The Next Giant Leap is more than a mission log. It is a story of perseverance after decades of delay, of what happens when a nation decides to reach outward again, and of four astronauts who carried the hopes of millions farther into the cosmos than anyone had gone in fifty-three years. Timely, inspiring, and deeply human, this is the definitive account of the flight that reopened the Moon for humanity - and launched the next era of exploration.
Also in
General World History
Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America
Kendi, Ibram X.
Paperback
Titanic: The Ship Magnificent - Volume Two: Interior Design and Fitting Out
Beveridge, Bruce
Braunschweiger, Art
Hall, Steve
Hardcover
Karl Popper - The Formative Years, 1902 1945: Politics and Philosophy in Interwar Vienna
Hacohen, Malachi Haim
Hardcover
Agents of Chaos: Thomas King Forçade, High Times, and the Paranoid End of the 1970s
Howe, Sean
Hardcover
A Manufactured Wilderness: Summer Camps and the Shaping of American Youth, 1890-1960
Van Slyck, Abigail A.
Hardcover
Animal, Vegetable, Junk: A History of Food, from Sustainable to Suicidal: A Food Science Nutrition History Book
Bittman, Mark
Hardcover
The Rise of Thomas Cromwell: Power and Politics in the Reign of Henry VIII, 1485-1534
Everett, Michael
Paperback
A Woman of No Importance: The Untold Story of the American Spy Who Helped Win World War II
Purnell, Sonia
Hardcover
Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong
Loewen, James W.
Paperback
The Allies: Roosevelt, Churchill, Stalin, and the Unlikely Alliance That Won World War II
Groom, Winston
Paperback
Something New Under the Sun: An Environmental History of the Twentieth-Century World
McNeill, J. R.
Paperback
Seafaring Women: Adventures of Pirate Queens, Female Stowaways, and Sailors' Wives
Cordingly, David
Paperback
Dangerous Games: Faces, Incidents, and Casualties of the Cold War
Wise, James E.
Baron, Scott
Hardcover
Everything Is Tuberculosis: The History and Persistence of Our Deadliest Infection
Green, John
Hardcover
The Wreck of the Mentor: A True Story of Death, Despair, and Deliverance in the Age of Sail
Dolin, Eric Jay
Hardcover
1873: The Rothschilds, the First Great Depression, and the Making of the Modern World
Ahamed, Liaquat
Hardcover
Obstinate Daughters: The Rebels, Writers, and Renegade Women Who Ignited the American Revolution
Kiernan, Denise
Hardcover
The Secret War Against Hate: American Resistance to Antisemitism and White Supremacy
Ross, Steven J.
Hardcover
100 Bible Verses That Made America: Defining Moments That Shaped Our Enduring Foundation of Faith
Morgan, Robert J.
Paperback
The Sea Captain's Wife: A True Story of Mutiny, Love, and Adventure at the Bottom of the World
Mazzeo, Tilar J.
Hardcover
True Color: The Strange and Spectacular Quest to Define Color--From Azure to Zinc Pink
Stamper, Kory
Hardcover
The Housewives Underground: The Untold Story of the Women Who Made the JFK Assassination Our Most Enduring Mystery
Tiffany, Kaitlyn
Hardcover
1,000 Days in America: An Illustrated History of the Moments That Defined a Nation
National Geographic
Hardcover
Two Ships: Jamestown 1619, Plymouth 1620, and the Struggle for the Soul of America
Reynolds, David S.
Hardcover
How to Kill a Language: Power, Resistance, and the Race to Save Our Words
Galer, Sophia Smith
Hardcover
The Zorg: A Tale of Greed and Murder That Inspired the Abolition of Slavery
Kara, Siddharth
Hardcover
Lightning Beneath the Sea: The Race to Wire the World and the Dawn of the Information Age
Tabor, James M.
Hardcover
American Pope: Leo XIV's Road from the South Side of Chicago to Vatican City
Burke, Daniel
Detrow, Scott
Hardcover
The Wide Wide Sea: Imperial Ambition, First Contact and the Fateful Final Voyage of Captain James Cook
Sides, Hampton
Paperback
The Conjuring of America: Mojos, Mermaids, Medicine, and 400 Years of Black Women's Magic
Stewart, Lindsey
Hardcover
Liberation Summer: The Moment That Changed the Women's Movement and the Future of American Politics
McElya, Micki
Hardcover
A Brief History of the World in 47 Borders: Surprising Stories Behind the Lines on Our Maps
Elledge, Jonn
Paperback
The Nord Stream Conspiracy: The Inside Story of the Explosions That Shook the World
Pancevski, Bojan
Hardcover
Captain's Dinner: A Shipwreck, an Act of Cannibalism, and a Murder Trial That Changed Legal History
Cohen, Adam
Hardcover
No One's Coming: The Rogue Heroes Our Government Turns to When There's Nowhere Else to Turn
Hazzard, Kevin
Hardcover
Socialism: The Real History from Plato to the Present: How the Deep State Capitalizes on Crises to Consolidate Control [With Paperback Book]
Federer, William J.
Paperback
How to Kill a Witch: The Patriarchy's Guide to Silencing Women
Mitchell, Claire
Venditozzi, Zoe
Paperback
The Summer of Death: The Great Heat Wave of 1936 and the Making of Modern-Day America
Williams, Geoff
Hardcover
Exceptional Hatred: Antisemitism and the Fight Over Free Speech in Modern America
Loeffler, James
Hardcover
Tiny Gardens Everywhere: The Past, Present, and Future of the Self-Provisioning City
Brown, Kate
Hardcover
The Phantom: The Untold Story of the American Marine the Nazis Could Not Kill
Clavin, Tom
Drury, Bob
Hardcover
A Woman of No Importance: The Untold Story of the American Spy Who Helped Win World War II
Purnell, Sonia
Paperback
A Fever in the Heartland: The Ku Klux Klan's Plot to Take Over America, and the Woman Who Stopped Them
Egan, Timothy
Paperback
The Women's History of the Modern World: How Radicals, Rebels, and Everywomen Revolutionized the Last 200 Years
Miles, Rosalind
Paperback
The Long Run: Steve Prefontaine, Frank Shorter, Joan Benoit, Grete Waitz, and the Decade That Made the Marathon Cool
Dugard, Martin
Hardcover
The Delectable Negro: Human Consumption and Homoeroticism Within Us Slave Culture
Woodard, Vincent
Paperback
King of Kings: The Iranian Revolution: A Story of Hubris, Delusion and Catastrophic Miscalculation
Anderson, Scott
Hardcover
How to Build a Haunted House: The History of a Cultural Obsession
Blackwell Baines, Caitlin
Hardcover
Radical Duke: How One Aristocrat-And the American Revolution-Transformed Britain
Allen, Danielle
Hardcover
Freedom's Daughters: How a Generation of Black Women Resisted Oppression Through Literacy and Education
Headlee, Celeste
Hardcover